# How much responsibility do African tribes share in the slave trade? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019 "2016-05-17T18:35:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/1 "2016-05-17T18:35:37Z")
I recall from American history classes that the African tribes captured people from neighboring tribes they defeated in battle. That was pretty common throughout early history everywhere. The victors in war took any resourcea available from their vanquished foes. Food, precious metals, land and the people too. Slave traders bought these captured people for the New World colonies. Sadly, the tribes ran out of captured warriors. And began grabbing any vulnerable people to sell to the slave traders. Does that make these tribes more guilty? Equally guilty? Could the slave trade flourished without their duplicity? Does history record which tribes supplied the slaves to traders? ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/2 "2016-05-17T18:44:50Z")
This will go well. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/3 "2016-05-17T18:50:04Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > This will go well. I LOLed. Yankees had no problem buying “southern grown” cotton either… ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/4 "2016-05-17T18:50:26Z")
I’m in no way suggesting the traders and colonies don’t bear responsibility. They are certainly rephensible. But little has been said about the tribes that supplied the slaves. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/5 "2016-05-17T18:51:24Z")
How are we supposed to assign the percentage of guilt? Slave trade was complex involving many nations and tribes. There were the people capturing slaves and selling them in Africa, the people who profited from shipping them out to other countries, and then those who bought and sold slaves at the destination. Countries abandoned the slave trade at different times. In the US the trade was abolished while slavery remained legal. I would say that at some point the demand side was more responsible than the supply side but I don’t know how to convert that into numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/6 "2016-05-17T18:52:09Z")
So in a morally repugnant market, who is more culpable, the supply or the demand? WRT slavery, history has shown that the demand side of the market is more at fault. But considering the illegal drug trade, it is the supply side that is considered more at fault as dealers tend to receive harsher punishments than users. Take pornography, the producer has been historically been impugned more than the consumer. In the area of prostitution, it would appear that again the suppliers (hookers and pimps) get the brunt of the punishment here as well. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/7 "2016-05-17T19:06:14Z")
It would have been difficult if not impossible for slave traders to capture significant numbers of people on their own. Some of the tribes were powerful. The Zulu nation for example. Slave traders would have been slaughtered if they tried abducting them. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/8 "2016-05-17T19:21:03Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I recall from American history classes that the African tribes captured people from neighboring tribes they defeated in battle. Slavery in West Africa long pre-dates Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/9 "2016-05-17T19:32:28Z")
That’s what I was explaining in the OP. Warriors haven’t taken vanquished people as slaves since ancient times. It’s mentioned in the old testament. Selling them to colonies on the other side of the world in such large numbers was a new twist. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/10 "2016-05-17T19:33:30Z")
Have taken. Darn autocorrect got me. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/11 "2016-05-17T19:35:15Z")
Just to elaborate, many people - particularly ISTM Americans - are unaware that slavery was pretty much universal until historically very recently. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/12 "2016-05-17T19:38:05Z")
I know next to nothing about African/African slavery, and essentially nothing about slavery as practiced anywhere else in the world now or say within the last 200 years. Having said that, isn’t the consensus that large-scale White/African agricultural slavery as it was practiced on Southern plantations was a unique example of personal, racial, cultural, and religious degradation? Didn’t Romans, for example, want their Greek slaves to be highly literate and capable of administering their masters’ affairs? And besides, that was Southern European/Southern European. Wasn’t Southern slavery in America “virtual” genocide? It would seem, therefore, that whatever might have been the motivations of African slave traders/hunters, the whites who took advantage of it were more morally culpable. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/13 "2016-05-17T19:40:42Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > I know next to nothing about African/African slavery, and essentially nothing about slavery as practiced anywhere else in the world now or say within the last 200 years. Having said that, isn’t the consensus that large-scale White/African agricultural slavery as it was practiced on Southern plantations was a unique example of personal, racial, cultural, and religious degradation? Didn’t Romans, for example, want their Greek slaves to be highly literate and capable of administering their masters’ affairs? And besides, that was Southern European/Southern European. Wasn’t Southern slavery in America “virtual” genocide? It would seem, therefore, that whatever might have been the motivations of African slave traders/hunters, the whites who took advantage of it were more morally culpable? Ask the Jewish people how they were treated by their Egyptian captors. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/14 "2016-05-17T19:42:27Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Selling them to colonies on the other side of the world in such large numbers was a new twist. That’s a practice as old as Rome. Captives would be sold to slavers who would transport them far away so there was less chance of them running away. Roman legionaries were settled far from their origins to help prevent rebellions. Michael Wood or Palin in one of his programs on China or the Vikings made mention of fair-haired, Viking, slaves in China. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/15 "2016-05-17T19:42:54Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Ask the Jewish people how they were treated by their Egyptian captors. Ummm…yup. O.K.; _semi_-unique. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/16 "2016-05-17T19:48:54Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > Having said that, isn’t the consensus that large-scale White/African agricultural slavery as it was practiced on Southern plantations was a unique example of personal, racial, cultural, and religious degradation? Not unique at all. Romans had slave farms - [latifundia](http://www.unrv.com/culture/roman-slavery.php) - akin to Southern plantations. Dark Ages and Medieval nobles owned whole villages. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/17 "2016-05-17T19:50:57Z")
Ignorance fought! :o ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/18 "2016-05-17T21:25:11Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Ask the Jewish people how they were treated by their Egyptian captors. They were treated _fictionally_? ---
**Author:** ![Last\_Glacial\_Maximum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc79bd/32.png) [@Last\_Glacial\_Maximum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Last_Glacial_Maximum)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/19 "2016-05-17T22:18:26Z")
For years, I’ve been quite curious about the question{s} raised in the OP. So far, in my lifetime, it just seemed too delicate an issue to bring up gracefully. I’ll watch how this thread progresses. . ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019/20 "2016-05-17T22:55:39Z")
Just as much. But that complicates demands for American reparations. Having to pay yourself because your ancestor profited from selling another of your ancestors to someone else’s ancestor who profited from the labor hurts the head. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-responsibility-do-african-tribes-share-in-the-slave-trade/755019.md?page=2)